We discovered 40 years ago that if you want to reach a lasting result in training that involves a change of habits and routines you need to
- Focus on the individual’s needs and objectives for the training and
- Schedule several follow up visits in order to support the student in the change process until they reach their training objectives.
Let us have a look what this looks like in practice.
Fritz, a technical knowledge worker in a large international company joined our PEP® training 3 months ago. Fritz had 2 objectives for the training. We are going to look at his first objective:
- Gain control over his email.
Fritz was constantly scanning his email and read emails were left in his Inbox. For mails requiring action he would mark as either unread or flag them.
The numerous flagged emails were to be found in between the several hundred already read emails and Fritz told me that he had absolutely no overview of work to be done.
Step 1: Email control. You can work with a Zero In Box but this requires that you have an alternative place to put the emails after you process them.
- Do It Now! If it can be done within 5 minutes, do it at once.
- Do it Later! Fritz did this. He flagged the email for later action. What he neglected to do and why it failed was that he did not give it a date. A handy way of doing your email if you have 2 screens is to have your email on one screen and your calendar on the other. “When do I have available time to do this?” Plan a block of time in your calendar.
- Delegate it!
- Delete it!
Perhaps you have noticed that all of the 4 options start with a D?
Thus, we have the mantra, the 4 D’s!
But Fritz is still not there. He still has 3,253 emails in his In Box that he needs to do something with. How ever is he going to get his In Box down to Zero?
“Create a folder under your In Box and name it ‘Email Archive’. Dump all the old mails in this folder. If you need anything use the same Search function you have been using in your In Box.”
That done Fritz has still a number of emails in his In Box that he would like to process one by one.
Before we start with these emails, we set up a To Do bar for tasks viewable in his calendar.
We then address the emails in his In Box one by one using the 4 D’s. This goes well except Fritz does not like to Delete. “Fine, drag emails to their designated folder or to the Email Archive. The idea is to get them out of your In Box.”
I show him how to make a task out of an email that shows up on the Task Bar in this agenda.
The key to email control is to see email for what it is. It’s only a communication medium. In itself it’s not important and does not deserve a lot of your time.
When I met with Fritz 2 weeks later, he had a zero In Box and his email was under control. He spent little time on it, processing his mail only a couple of times a day. “The key was the 4 D’s.” he said.
When I met with Fritz again a few weeks later for Step 3 the first thing he said was “It’s total chaos. I’m really in trouble.”
What happened? See the following Blog.